in my novel "the brief wondrous life of oscar wao," he is the heart of all our ories. but i had to actually believe it. and sometimes that's a journey, man, when you grow up being told that that's the kind of boy you should never be. then to write about that boy, to write with great compassion, to write with love, to be critical without being cruel, hey man, not all of us get that immediately off the bat and had to learn those things to be able to write oscar. >> so you had to imagine yourself as this fat dominican boy who loves and is fascinated by fantasy and mythology and fiction? >> and to be compassionate for the parts of him and the parts of me that the parts of him awakened. i mean, compassion, sympathy, these things are important. and sometimes they don't come just instantly. sometimes you got to work at them, man. i mean, listen, we forget that compassion isn't just something you get. compassion is a muscle that has to be exercised. >> that's fascinating to me, because america, whether we like to admit it or not is about survival of the fittest. it's the indiv